Trump says Haiti is safe enough for people to return. UN chief says otherwise

Miami Herald

2 days ago

A new briefing by United Nations chief António Guterres on the worsening gang violence in Haiti is challenging the Trump administration's view that conditions inside the volatile Caribbean nation have 'improved enough' for more than a half million Haitians temporarily residing in the United States to safely return home.
Guterres' report, obtained by the Miami Herald before it was made public, is part of his regular update on the situation in Haiti to the U.N. Security Council. An advanced copy was sent to the council, which has scheduled a closed-door meeting on Monday and a public discussion on Wednesday about the situation in Haiti. Written before the announcement on Friday by the Department of Homeland Security terminating Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, the report provides an independent assessment of the reality in the country, where criminal gangs have triggered a complex humanitarian crisis.
Along with causing the displacement of people from their homes, hunger and a collapse of the education system, armed gangs have shuttered hospitals and schools, forced both rich and poor to flee their homes — sometimes with nothing more than the clothes on their backs — and have 5.7 million people, nearly half of the country's population, facing acute hunger.
'Haiti continues to face considerable challenges, particularly arising from the deterioration of the security situation and the expanding foothold of the gangs,' the U.N. secretary-general said in the report, highlighting the rising levels of violence particularly targeting women.
There have been more than 4,000 gang-related homicides in the first five months of this year, an increase of 24% compared to the same time frame last year, he said. The rise, coupled with growing public frustrations over the government's inability to protect them, is pushing many Haitians to run vigilantism, Guterres warned.
'In sustaining their territorial expansion, armed gangs have seized strategic locations across the West, Central and Artibonite, spreading violence and committing serious human rights abuses against the population,' he said. 'All access routes to the capital are now under gang control.'
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on Friday announced the end of Haiti's TPS designation. TPS allowed an estimated 521,000 Haitians to legally live and work in the U.S. until conditions at home improved. Justifying the reason for ending the protection on Sept. 2, a DHS spokesperson said 'the environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home.'
Absent a change of heart by President Donald Trump or an injunction by the courts, the decision means Haitians — some of whom had been living in the United States for decades due to Haiti's perpetual instability — face returning to a nation in turmoil.
Gangs tighten grip
The attacks are being carried out by members of a powerful gang coalition, Viv Ansanm, which has been tightening its grip since January. Gang members have forced government offices and agencies to relocate, affecting access to essential services and accelerating the country's economic collapse.
Nearly 1.3 million people have been forced out of their homes and are living in makeshift shelters, according to the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration. The number is just below the 1.5 million left homeless in 2010 after a massive earthquake prompted President Barack Obama to suspend deportations to Haiti and designate the country for TPS.
In the years since, hundreds of thousand of others have benefited from the designation and extensions, including ones that followed the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
'The main international airport is closed, and gangs have taken over the capital. Nothing is working,' said Pierre Esperance, a human rights activist in Port-au-Prince. 'If you send all of these people to Haiti, where are they going to go?'
Faced with the worsening violence and political instability after Moïse's still unsolved killing plunged the country into further chaos, many Haitians left because they had no choice, he added.
'It's a situation that is grave, chaotic and sad for Haitians,' Esperance said.
The Miami-based Haitian-American Foundation for Democracy agrees. Forcibly returning Haitian nationals 'is a recipe for greater chaos in Haiti and throughout the region,' the advocacy group said in a statement
Guterres' report highlighted several recent events. Port-au-Prince-based gangs, he wrote, now partially control the town of Mirebalais — where the country's most modern and best equipped hospital has been forced to close — and the town of Saut-d'Eau. Both are home to key roads that link the capital to northern regions of the country and the neighboring Dominican Republic.
This month gangs set fire to Mirebalais' central public market, while fed up residents broke into the Péligre hydroelectric plant and sabotaged equipment in a show of frustration with the lack of response from Haitian authorities. The twice plunged Port-au-Prince into darkness.
In response to the violence, the government has implemented a series of security measures, including the renewal of the nationwide state of emergency until July 31. The country's Transitional Presidential Council also adopted a resolution authorizing the involvement of a controversial force, the Protected Areas Security Brigade, to fight gangs despite the agency's strained relationships with the Haiti National Police.
Guterres' report steers clears of some U.N. officials' concerns about the deadly use of force to root out gangs and instead says that between March and May, the operations resulted in the deaths of at least 262 gang members.
Security Council meets
In February, Guterres recommended several measures. He nixed the deployment of a formal U.N. peacekeeping mission to Haiti instead offering for the Security Council to take on some of the financial burden for the multinational security mission being led by Kenya. But so far, the proposal has stalled at the U.N. where council members have been waiting on a clear directive from Washington.
The Trump administration has not yet said whether it intends to support Guterres' recommendation.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently called on the Organization of American States to play a more active role in Haiti. But rather than agree to lead a security intervention, as Rubio has suggested, the OAS last week adopted a resolution calling for concrete solutions to resolve the crisis.
On Monday, members of the Security Council are scheduled to meet in a closed briefing to begin deliberations on Guterres' proposal.
The Security Council has several reports on Haiti, including one showing that the number of child victims of the armed conflict has skyrocketed since last year by almost 500%, and another detailing the effects of the intensification of gang violence and the rise in human rights violations. That report was put together by the Security Council's panel of experts on Haiti who have been tasked with investigating the violence to help members decide who to target with global sanctions. The panel of experts' report is equally grim and also details the country's failed transition, which was stood up over a year ago with the help of the United States, the Caribbean Community and others.
'Gangs have been increasingly aggressive,' a report prepared by a Security Council panel of experts said, noting that armed groups have targeted the last 'free bastions' of Port-au-Prince. 'Alongside murder, kidnapping and rape, gangs have perpetrated at least four massacres' since mid-October, killing than 200 people in one case. The report warns that the number of mob lynchings is growing, as are the instances of extrajudicial killings by the Haitian national police.
Mission members slain
In a letter to the Security Council, Kenya President Willliam Ruto said the security mission his country is spearheading up in Haiti nees more equipment and operational support. The mission currently has 991 security personnel in Haiti, including 731 Kenyan police officers who arrived in three separate contingents starting June 25, 2024.
That number is far below the planned 2,500 officers the mission originally planned to send to Haiti, said Ruto. Two members of the multinational force were killed this year by gangs.
Ruto also notes that of 12 envisioned forward operating bases, only three have been established. In addition, the mission lacks air and sea capabilities, both of which he said are critical to deal with gang attacks from the mountains and at sea.
'The Haitian people require greater engagement and support from the international community for the restoration of sustainable peace and security,' Ruto said.